PHCS02E12 Retro WEB

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and today we're going back to the time when poodle skirts, hula hoops, and TV dinners were all the rage

I'm gonna give you a taste of those good old times again. First, we're headed to my hometown of Albany, Georgia, to get the twist on some peppermint sticks

And then it's back to my kitchen where we're making Aunt Peggy's meatloaf. And then it's okra and tomatoes and cottage potatoes that are just the perfect side par for this meal

And finally, it's peppermint cream pie and peppermint bar, a dessert that's so refreshing and light, you'll feel like dancing all night

So open up the snack tables and invite a few friends over. We're going to be taking a trip down Comfort Food Lane

Hey, y'all

Today, I'm going to take y'all back to my past. I'm going to take you to visit Bob's Candy Company

where the McCormick family is king of peppermint. Y'all come along with me

and we're going to do the peppermint twist. Greg, I don't think I've ever seen so many candy canes in all my life in one spot

Well, you know, Paula, we make a billion candy canes. That's with a B, per year

Paula, I want you to meet my two sisters that work in the business with me. This is Mary Helen

Hey, Mary Helen. Good to see you. Hello, I'm Julie Ruff. Hey, Julie

Nice to see you. Welcome to Bob's Candies. I can't hardly wait to get my hands in something else

Let's get you some gloves and get going. Do I need my safety glasses back here

Most definitely. Now, those would be some style and safety glasses. What is this, Greg

That looks delicious. Oh, now, Paula, that is the candy, the sugar and the corn syrup that we've taken off the cooling table

and we've put it onto the pulling machine. And just the air going inside the candy turns it that satiny white color

and that's where we put the peppermint flavor. Okay, Paula, now, he's taken the white, it's called the pin slab

And if you look, it's got little lines on there that's going to show him where to put the pinstripes on there

All right, now just stretch it and put it where? Right there

Right there. What? You make it look so easy, Charlie. What I've been doing for three years

Look, I'm going to have a crooked cane. Right about the center

All right. In the center? Is that the center? That's there. What does that weigh

That weighs about 100 pounds. Now this is called the batch roller, Paula, and that takes that big batch of candy and

it's going to narrow it down to a lot smaller size where it goes through those rollers that

give you the exact size candy cane that you want. Now how long will it take

That will take about 20 minutes. Well now y'all will show me everything, Julie, but how do you get the handle in that candy cane

Well that's a secret that Bob's Candies is going to have to keep. Let's just suffice it to say it's not done by elves

Paula, we thank you for coming and we want you to take this back to your kitchen and do great things with it

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, McCormick, for a wonderful time in your candy shop

Y'all mean so much to Albany. And I'm going to put these to good use. Good to see you. Bye

Bye. I hope y'all had fun in my birthplace in Albany, Georgia

at Bob's Candy Company. It was so much fun. Really took me back to the 60s

I got some peppermint, and I'm going to put it to the side because we're going to move right on to our entree

which is a wonderful 50s and 60s dish, an old-fashioned meatloaf. Just like my mother and my Aunt Peggy and my grandmother used to make

Before we get started, I think I'm going to get rid of these fun glasses. We're going to start with a ground beef, a good ground beef

Maybe an 80-20, something like that. All right, we're going to kind of break it down just a little bit

And we're going to add a teaspoon and about a quarter of salt

And a deep and fourth of a teaspoon of the pepper. All right, now I've got like a half of a large onion and a diced bell pepper

We're just going to mix that in there with that. Oops, forgot to take my jewelry off

Did I show y'all my engagement ring that Michael gave me? I don't want that meatloaf all in those rings

All right, so we're just going to mash that bell pepper and onions up into the hamburger meat

Kind of get that incorporated along with that salt and pepper. We're going to take one egg and give it just a few beets

Just a little bit And then we going to add a fourth of a cup of oatmeal

And this just gives your meatloaf a real light and fluffiness to it

And then we're going to take a can of just diced tomatoes and their juice

Squish, squish. So you can see I'm starting to try to work that into kind of a loaf shape right now

I'm just going to take that out and put it into our dish

And the thing I like about my Aunt Peggy's meatloaf is she doesn't top it with just ketchup

She takes a fourth of a cup of ketchup and about a tablespoon of mustard

A couple of tablespoons of brown sugar. And just mixes those together

And the brown sugar is so good in there. You know, it just kind of gives that meatloaf just a little sweetness on the outside

And we're just going to brush that on our meat. Doesn't that look yummy

So this one's ready to go in the oven. And we're going to put it in a 350 preheated oven

And we're going to let it cook for about 45 minutes to an hour. Before we know it, we're gonna have a wonderful aroma coming from the oven

But while we're waiting on that to cook, I want to show you another favorite from

the 50s and 60s, and that's okra and tomatoes. Now I've started with some

chopped up bacon, and I'm gonna add to the bacon one chopped onion, and you see

how much garlic, a good bit. So we're gonna dump all that in. So we're gonna

saute until it's kind of transparent. And I'm gonna put in a large can of diced

tomatoes. Now if it's tomato seasoned, by all means use fresh. All right, now we're

gonna add a tablespoon of chicken base. And we're gonna use about a tablespoon of

of sugar. Just give it a little hint of sweetness. Now we're gonna let this cook

for about 20 minutes. In fact, I already have some tomatoes right here that have

been cooking. So we're just gonna throw our okra over in here, and I'm probably

using two cups of okra. Look at the colors, aren't they pretty? So we're just

gonna put the lid on that and let that cook until the okra is done, probably

about 10 or 15 minutes. And let's see what we've got right here. And see how

they've lightened out and color. So that lets us know that they're done. So that

really completes that dish. That's how simple it is. Let's check that oven and

see how the other meatloaf that I've got in the other oven's doing. Oh, it looks so

Look at that meat. Doesn't that look good? Well, I can smell those bell peppers

I'm gonna just try one of those little end pieces. Come over here and get me some of that okra and tomatoes

Doesn't it look just yummy? I'm gonna get some of that okra and tomatoes

tomatoes. Doesn't it look just yummy? Mmm. It's so hot

So good. Takes me back to my Aunt Peggy's table. When we come back, we're going to be doing the peppermint twist in a peppermint pie

Hi, y'all caught me just gathering everything up to make our peppermint pie

This is going to be a perfect ending to our meal. We're going to start with heavy cream

and a cup of crushed peppermint. And I'm going to do this the old-fashioned way

Okay, that looks to be about a cup. I'm going to mix my gelatin with a little bit of water

and let that dissolve for a second. And we're going to pour our peppermint

into our cream, and we're going to stir this until our milk gets totally incorporated. We're going to add our

gelatin and this is going to act as our thickening agent for our pie. And you don't want to walk

away from your pan on this one It shouldn take too long for that candy to melt I actually have some ready right here We just switch eyes and let it melt And you find that when you melt your peppermint that it turns a real pretty

caramel color. Now our candy and our cream has cooled off nicely. We're going to fold it into

whipped cream that's been whipped to a nice peak. So I'm just going to make sure I get all the goody

out of this sauce pot. Now you wanna be careful when folding in your melted candy

because you don't wanna break down your whipping cream. We've got that mixed in

so all we're gonna do is pile this into a store-bought chocolate cracker crumb crust

And if you want to, you can make your own out of Oreo cookies, they're so good

We're just gonna pile this in and stick this in the refrigerator until it's set

And you see how when it's mixed with the whipping cream, it almost has a little light pinkish cast to it

Okay, so we're just going to stick this in the fridge and let it set, which it won't take long

because it's got that gelatin in it. And while that's setting up

I'm going to show you how to make the easiest peppermint pine bark

So simple. For this one now, I've chosen some of the just hard candy canes

and you can use any kind of peppermint you want for this

but we're gonna take, oh, about that many and we're gonna just take this and break them up

And I'm not gonna break these up very fine cause I like to really crunch into the peppermint

Now I've got a couple of pounds of good white chocolate melting over the heat and that looked delicious

See how that's just smoothing right on out with that little bit of flame going to it

And I'm gonna put about maybe a half a teaspoon of peppermint flavoring

But we're gonna have the peppermint from the candy and the peppermint from the flavorings

That white chocolate was yummy though. All right, and all we're gonna do

we don't wanna melt our peppermint. So we're not gonna stir it in until we're totally done

with the heat. Now I've got just an ordinary cookie sheet lined with a parchment paper, and I'm just

going to fold that candy into that chocolate, and then we're just going to spread it onto

our pan. Now you can make it as thick with the candy as you like. I'm just going to spread

that out, and you can just hold onto your piece of paper so it won't slide away with

you. Isn't that pretty the way you can see the pieces of candy? All we're going to do

is chill that. We're going to stick it in the refrigerator. And I happen to have some already

cooling in here. It's ready to break out. And I've got a pie ready. And I've even got some more whipping cream

So see how simple that was? And you have a great candy, and it just lifted right off

Now all you have to do is just break this into any shape you want

and as big a piece as you want. This is a fun little thing to have the children do

So our peppermint bark is ready. Now I like my pies like I do my hairdo real high

So I'm gonna bring this one up a little bit by adding whipped cream to it

Now I'm using heavy cream that's been sweetened with a little sugar

And I'm just gonna pile that nice and high on it. Almost looks like meringue, doesn't it

Now to finish our pile, I have some crushed peppermint candies. And I'm just gonna give it a little sprinkle

Doesn't that look delicious? So simple and easy. You'll want to work your crust away from your container

I'm going to put me just a few sprinkles on my plate

Oh, doesn't that look good? And I think I ought to chase that piece of pie with some peppermint bark, don't y'all

Oh gosh, it looks delicious. See where I put those crumbs on that plate

So I could take my fork and go around and get me a few extra. Feel the crunch

So delicious. This is hard to beat, but coming up next, We going to do some old cottage potatoes So I see y in a few minutes

No retro meal would be complete without a potato. So we're fixing to make an old timey dish

cottage potatoes, but I'm going to show you a new twist to them. Now we're going to use three large

bacon potatoes. These are more like a medium, so I'm probably going to use about five of these

So all we're going to do is slice them, and you don't have to be perfect because we're actually

going to wind up mashing these up, but you want them close in size so they'll all be done about

the same time. All right, now all we're going to do is cover those with water, and I'm going to throw

a little salt in the pot with them, and just boil those until they're tender. Those look just

delicious. We're going to add a little salt to them, and I'm using a nice kosher on these

and a little black pepper. All right, now the recipe calls for two tablespoons of butter

That looks like two tablespoons to me, doesn't it? Do you? You know, I never was real good at

measuring. All right, so we're going to take our masher, and you can see I'm using an old-timey

masher instead of an electric mixer, because I don't want these real creamy. I still kind of want

them in chunks. I just love a potato. I know y'all have heard me say it before. If you were going to

send me off to an island and say, Paula, you can only have one food, I would choose the tater. And

That's about how I like them. Now we're going to take just ordinary cottage cheese

and stir into those. Those look good just like that, don't they

Let's see, I've got some onions sitting around here to throw in that

Let me find my onion. Here it is. We're going to just toss in some onion

and those will still be kind of crunchy and good. I'm just going to pile them into the casserole dish

I'm going to spray it so they won't stick too, too badly on us. Now, if you wanted to, you could actually even jazz this up

with some sour cream with a little mayonnaise or milk. It would be delicious on it

But I'm going to do this just like the recipe calls for in my cookbook

Going to mash those down in there. And if you liked it hot, you can even add some jalapeno

We're just going to sprinkle this with paprika, and the paprika will give it a nice brown look

And why don't we just for good measure take the rest of our butter

That two tablespoons doesn't need to be sitting there by itself. So we'll just dot the top of this with a little bit more butter

And we're going to stick this in a 350-degree preheated oven and we're going to bake it for about 30 or 35 minutes

And I have one over here that should be ready. And it is

Look how good it looks. It's sizzling. Here it's sizzling. It's so good, y'all

Coming up next, some old-timey tips for today's great foods. You know, some folks just don't like a greasy meatloaf

Well, let me tell you how to solve that problem. You just line your baking dish with whatever kind of loaf bread you've got in the house

and it soaks up all your grease. And you just take your spatula and lift your meatloaf out onto your platter

Just that simple. And on the okra, if you can't find fresh okra, it's not a problem

because the fresh frozen okra is so very good. You can buy it in whole pods, or you can buy it already cut up, whatever your dish calls for

Hope these tips will help you. I hope y'all have had fun with me today going back into the past with some fun old meals from the 50s and 60s

I hope you'll love my Aunt Peggy's meatloaf and the cottage potatoes and Bob's peppermint candy pie and the peppermint bark

And, of course, my okra and tomatoes. Hope you have a great time at your own party

In the meantime, America, I wish you best dishes from my kitchen to yours